Galacticans in the 25th Century
by Romantic Twist
Summary: Buck Rogers and Starbuck are both reunited with their true loves. (A sequel to both 1980 and Starbuck flashback sequences of Galactica: 1980 with a Buck Rogers crossover at the end).
1. Chapter 1

Starbuck wandered back to the shelter which he had been sharing with his late Cylon companion Cy and the mysterious alien woman Angela. It was the only real refuge he'd known since his forced landing on the planet which he had come to name after himself. He lay down on what passed for a bed and thought back over all that had happened. It seemed that, from the moment that Baltar had betrayed the twelve colonies to the Cylons, loss of lives around him had defined his ironic ongoing existence. He had seen Apollo's brother Zac lost, then Apolla's new wife of only a few hours Serena, later Commander Cain (if he had indeed died) then various others with whom he was not as intimately friendly.

Apollo had briefly married Sheba and had a son called Markus, but Boxy's step brother would see very little of his parents. Starbuck knew that all too well now.

Recently, he had seen Apollo, Sheba, Athena, Colonel Tigh and a number of other warriors fall while defending the Galactica from a large scale Cylon attack. Apollo's stepson Troy, called Boxy, had been left without mother, stepfather or aunt, and would now be raised only by his grandfather Commander Adama. Starbuck could only admire a Commander who would continue to lead the fleet while putting aside the grief of losing so many of his younger relatives, having outlived his own childen. The one thing about being stuck on a planet alone, mused Starbuck, was that he would most likely never have to witness another death. Now he'd simply lost everyone to the fact that it was impossible for him to leave the planet and rejoin the fleet.

Starbuck had even lost the one Cylon friend that he had ever made: Cy. Otherwise known as Group Leader Cyrus, this one Cylon had transferred his loyalties to the Colonial Warrior who had brought his circuits back to life, and then bluffed his former Cylon allies long enough to blast them all in a quick shoot out. Then Cy too had lost his life in that blaster fight. The lovely Angela had left as mysteriously as she had arrived, while her newborn baby son was speeding through space in a Galactican/Cylon hybrid ship. Now Starbuck was alone, and expected to be that way for a long time, probably free of fear of being killed by Cylons, no longer involved in their war against humanity, and yet no longer able to interact with humanity either.

Unwilling to face another hour's contemplation of such things, Starbuck willed himself to fall asleep.

After several hours, he entered a rapid eye movement phase of dreaming, and dreamt eventually of a woman stroking his forehead. Awakening, Starbuck looked up to see that such a blessing was actually happening. Angela stood beside him, and was indeed touching his head.

"My child is on his way, Starbuck, and I find you worthy of my companionship, and hope you will find me worthy of yours," said Angela, with her unique way of jumping straight to the most significant of statements.


	2. Chapter 2

Starbuck recalled her first words ever spoken to him: "Starbuck, would you die for me?" Or was it, "Would you give your life for me, Starbuck?" It was something like that. Now she had returned from apparent abandonment to declare herself as his 'companion.'

"I … I do, but there's so much more I'd like to know about you," said Starbuck, "Remember I told you about my non-committal involvements with Athena and Casseopia? With each of them, I was never actually in love. I never realised that until I WAS in love with you, and then you just left."

"I could come and go as I pleased," said Angela, "My people have some degree of teleportation ability. I had to see how you coped with these new directions in your life, had to know that I meant more to you than merely being another Athena or another Casseopia."

"But why would you send your son into space alone?"

"So that he can meet with your people, so that he can grow up with their trust from infanthood to adulthood, so that he can use his advanced scientific knowledge to provide them with the tools to beat the Cylons. My people fear that those evil robot-like beings will eventually become so numerous that they may even wipe out my people, or at least lay waste to our planets, even if we teleported away. Our science is ahead of your own, but we are not immortal."

"Who are you then?"

"You met us once before, when your friend Apollo was near death. In fact, you believed him dead. In fact, he was only dead by primitive measures."

"You're one of those gods?"

"My people aren't gods. Neither are your Lords of Kobol. In fact, they're merely legends. There's only one true God who created life on many worlds across the universe. Too often people tend to mistake those with advanced scientific abilities for gods. But let me tell you something. One of my people, the evil Count Ibley, who menaced you, Adama, Apollo and Sheba, was the one who infiltrated the Cylon race and stirred them up to hate the individuality of humans. It was he who corrupted your former councilman Baltar and arranged the betrayal. We were unaware of Ibley's activities until it was too late. When Ibley decided to play his games with your people, he disguised himself a little for Baltar's benefit, and handed Baltar over to them. Yet Baltar recognised his voice."

"So Ibley's responsible for all the devastation on Caprica, for the massacres on the other colonies …"

"Yes, he was. We have imprisoned him, but his evil Cylon legacy still pursues your people to earth. We observed and monitored Adama's plan to lead the fleet to earth, but were fearful of the danger that would cause to the populace there. That earth was a 13th tribe of your colonies was merely another legend. It was created and populated separately. Its people would have no means to fend off a Cylon attack. However, at the time Ibley attempted to murder Apollo, the oldest and most intelligent of my people had just taken a wife, in the hope of genetically passing on his scientific ability to an heir, someone who would grow into a man who could design the means to defeat the Cylons. Although I disguised myself in your presence, I heard you talking to the representatives of my people, when you said you'd gladly do anything to save Apollo, even die in his place. It was I who married that much older man, so that it would be my son who would grow to help your people. In the time since then, I became a pregnant widow, and then I came here, to see if you'd be as willing to die in my place… only to see, to see if you'd outgrown your old ways. My son will one day help your people, and you can be sure that your fleet will survive and find earth, but for you there is a chance to leave behind the lifestyle of the warrior, to come to one of my planets with me, a planet so well hidden that the Cylons continued their pursuit of the Galactica, without ever finding it. We could live out our remaining many days together, Starbuck."


	3. Chapter 3

"Why can't you teleport me to another ship of yours or something? We could try to catch up to the Galactica and tell them."

"We'd never catch the Galactic now. Think how long you've been here. Besides, after the legacy of distrust that Ibley has left your people, can you really see Adama accepting me and raising my son with all the secrets of Galactica's operations?"

"I guess not," said Starbuck.

"Then will you come with me? My people left me another ship which is well concealed on this planet. I didn't want it to bias the outcome of the way I tested you."

"I am grateful, and I want to go with you," said Starbuck, "But please, I have to ask one thing: no more testing. A companion needs to trust and share things."

"From now on, I will," said Angela.

She put her arms around Starbuck and he found himself teleported in her arms to her hidden ship. They flew to her concealed planet, and there Starbuck saw beautiful silvery trees growing around every other sign of paradise that any one man's eyes could behold.

"What do you think, Starbuck?"

"When I thought you were gone for good, I'd have given anything to have lived like Adam and Eve on that dessert filled planet where we met," said Starbuck, "But this is …. I think I really could leave Galactica in your son's future hands and be happy here. It's the only thing I can do anyway, and it really is what I'd like to do."

Deep in space, the hybrid spaceship reached the Galactica and caught the attention of Boomer and Adama. The infant was retrieved and raised aboard the Galactica. Known only as Zee, the first word the boy ever spoke, he became a companion of Boxy and another Galactican boy named Dillon. Casseopia eventually stopped grieving the loss of Starbuck, and married Flight Sergeant Greenbean, after an injury prevented him from further service aboard Colonial Vipers. They lived a quiet reclusive life, grew old together, and disappeared into obscurity.

In 1980, Galactica discovered earth at a time when Dr Zee had reached full maturity and begun to invent the most advanced technology ever seen. It was exponentially far ahead of anything that the Cylons had come up with. As Dillon and Troy began to set up a colony of Galactican children on earth, Dr Zee completed work on a prototype of his supership, a single spaceship capable of decisively destroying an entire Cylon base star and all its ships.

"I'd like to go down to our ranch and look at the crops in person," said Adama, "There's a whole bonanza of opportunities for me on earth, but Dr Zee will need my help to supervise the construction of many more superships. Zee says that they can traverse the distance back to our lost colonies in a fraction of the time it took us to travel from there to earth. With Troy and Dillon's help, we will scout up materials on earth when required, and build the new ships. Then our best warriors will be trained to use them. First we'll take out the Cylons who have been close by ever since we discovered earth. After that, they will back track at high speed to our colonies and reclaim them. The Cylons have left us with no choice but to do what they have continually tried to do to us: wipe them out, "If we leave one Cylon intact, their race of machines will be rebuilt and many more human lives destroyed for no reason other than their being different."

"We learned of a man who thought that way, back when we were time travelling back in pursuit of Xaviar in the 1940s of earth's history," said Troy, "He was called Hitler."


	4. Chapter 4

"Commander, Dr Zee, I'd like to stay behind," said Dillon, "Our children were all chosen for the earth colony because they're the orphan children of people slain by the Cylons during our long quest for earth. They should be given the chance to grow up on earth, continue the lives they've been establishing for themselves in the last year. They'll need my help to continue adapting and blending in, and besides that , I have become close to the daughter of our ranching partners Hector and Louise Alonzo. Gloria and I would like to be together."

"We have enough keen pilots for the superships," said Adama, "Besides, I would not stand in the way of your settling on earth."

"I'll have to say goodbye to Jaime too," said Troy, recalling his many adventures with the reporter who had helped them to protect and guide the Galactican children.

"You have at least 50 Centars before we go after the first wave of Cylons," said Adama, "Although I must say on a personal note, which I rarely do in front of the crew, that I'm relieved that at least one of my only two surviving relatives has chosen to return with me."

"What about Xaviar?" asked Dillon.

"I have been monitoring him," said Dr Zee, who seemed to have shared his mother's ability to do that, "I have made him aware of our achievements. Councilman Xaviar no longer believes that there is any need to interfere in the history of earth's technology. He knows he is an outlaw, and will not return to Galactica to face disciplinary action. However, he intends to settle on earth and lead a quiet life, without drawing any attention to his Galactican origin. It is my belief that he will not be a threat, but should he ever change his mind, I am reassured by the decision to leave Dillon and Gloria Alonzo to raise and train our children on earth. Dillon must also make sure that the time travelling capability that I built into our latest Galactican Vipers can never be learned by the people of earth. It is a secret that must only be known to those in our colony, and ideally never used."

"I agree. The temptation would have been phenomenal, if we'd had that potential back when our colonies were first destroyed. We might have caused a serious time paradox at least in the vicinity of our own colonies, had we tried to go back and alter the events that Baltar set in motion the day he betrayed us. Nobody would like to do that more than I, but the results would be catastrophic. Who knows what would have happened if we'd met our younger selves," said Adama.

"It was fortunate that Dillon, myself and Xaviar didn't have younger selves on earth in the 1940s. Even Jaime hadn't been born at that time," said Troy.

"You're all dismissed for now," said Adama, "I will notify civilians that if any of them wish to join the earth colony instead of returning to the 12 we came from, they must fly down in transport vessels in the next 50 Centars."

It was now late 1981, and a young earth astronaut named William Rogers began a five year training course which would prepare him to play a significant role in the space program. He was unaware of the presence of the Galactica, which would soon leave earth orbit before William would ever have a chance to reach it.

Troy flew down to earth, made contact with Jaime and told her everything that Adama had announced.

"Troy, I'm a news reporter, and I can't see anything more exciting to discover, than the worlds your people came from," said Jaime, "I'm sorry for the way I acted when we first met, but you must have come to understand how suspicious you and Dillon first seemed."

"That doesn't matter, Jaime. If anything, I'm sorry we involved you in so much of the drama we caused down here. We can't have helped you to make the best impression on your employer. Are you saying you'd like to come with me on a long journey across the universe, to a group of planets that will be unfamiliar to you?"

"That's what Dillon did, and he's staying here with the one he cares for."

"I care for you, Jaime, and I was fortunate to find someone who helped us as much as you did. I knew I had to go with my grandfather, and that I would not like to say goodbye to you. I'd like nothing more than for you to come with us … with me. Our new ships are basically unbeatable, but the Galactica would never keep up with them, if Dr Zee hadn't modified its speed as well. It won't have the same fighting potential as the superships, but they'll be protecting it as the Cylons face their final fight. You can stay aboard the Galactica with my grandfather while I go into battle."

"So long as you're definetely coming back."

"I think we've earned a fight that's impossible for us to lose," said Troy, "I lost my father, my mother, and then my stepfather, and his wife. My step brother is a civilian aboard a transport vessel. I hoped I'd see more of Markus after the final battle, but he's accepted Grandfather's offer to all civilians to settle on earth. Civilian life was all he ever wanted, not inheriting the battle skills of our common father."

Neither Troy nor Jaime had directly spelled out the unmentioned feelings that each had been developing for the other since Galactica had discovered earth. Yet they each got the idea, and would be happy together on Caprica. Troy still had vague memories of the first Cylon attack and his meeting of Apollo, and the gift of a mechanical dog named Muffit.


	5. Chapter 5

Zero Centar came around and Adama radioed the fleet's final farewells and best wishes for the earth colony.

"Alright, this is the final briefing," said Adama, "In a nearby quadrant are the latest group we've encountered of the most ruthless killing machines of all time. They've been hoping we'd deliver earth into their hands, just so that they could implement another act of genecide. This is where it stops! One of their ships actually did find earth and land in New York, but its occupants were defeated by Troy and Dillon, before it could let the other Cylons know where to come. When you've got your hands on the triggers that wield the most powerful weapons ever designed, and you're thinking about whether you can really pull them, just remember that you're pulling the trigger on heartless walking metal frames that exist only to kill every human being in the universe. When you're blasting their ships out of existence, think of your ancestors who were peacefully expecting another night to pass on their home planets decades ago, and were swooped and shot to pieces by aggressors they didn't even know. Think of the children that died that night. Think of the warriors who've died since. Think of the lifestyles we've had to lead. Then pull those triggers and don't look back."

Had he overdone it? Adama's accumulated grief had all come into play in that speech. They were just evil machines, although he didn't know everything that Angela had revealed to Starbuck a long time ago about Ibley's involvement. Still Adama did know about Baltar's criminal treachery. The man was thankfully no longer with them, but had died in prison. In fact, in his earlier days, Xaviar had proposed a public execution once, but Adama thought that Baltar deserved to sit in a Galactican cell and contemplate what he'd done.

The new Galactican fleet left earth, and tore through the first group of Cylons like they weren't even there. This particular group didn't even seem to have a base star still around to protect them. It wouldn't have survived the superships' attack anyway.

In less than a year, the superships led the Galactica through the universe, wiping out Cylon base stars and small ships alike, destroying Cylon production complexes which had been established on a number of otherwise uninhabited planets, and finally it was done. All traces of Cylon existence had been expunged from the universe.

"It won't bring my wife back," thought Adama, "nor Apollo, nor anyone else, but it will make sure that nobody else loses a loved one to those murderous metal monstrosities."

In a momentous occasion of ceremony, the Galactica actually landed on the planet Caprica. Now on the surface of the planet, it continued to be a living quarters for the people, while Dr Zee supervised the rebuilding of the planet's cities, along with those of the other planets.

Troy and Jaime married, and Adama lived just long enough to see the first three months of his great grandson's life, before completely passing on the torch to Dr Zee. Although not Caprican by birth, not even Galactican, he was accepted as the one who had led the people as Adama's second in command from the moment that he was old enough to do so.

In 1987, William Rogers explained to the great love of his life, Jennifer, that he would never take another space mission after this one chance to orbit the earth. Many others had trained with him, and would go on, he assumed. He would be grounded in his career, and spend his free time with Jennifer.

However, Ranger 3 got caught in a much larger orbit. William 'Buck' Rogers found that his life support was frozen. He slept in suspended animation (even though his show was an animated series) for 500 years, and awoke in the 25th Century.

In the meantime, Dillon and Gloria lived happily in the 20th and 21st Centuries. The Galactican children and other settlers grew older and set up secret bases to advance their technology without it falling into the wrong hands. Eventually the Galacticans' descendants had allied themselves with some of the more trustworthy leaders of earth in the 22nd Century, and formed what became known as the Earth Defence Directorate in the 25th Century. It was this organization that welcomed Buck Rogers into the new era, but Buck was never able to forget Jennifer. To his memory, she had been lost for only the time it had taken him to fly Ranger 3 into orbit in 1987. In reality, she had been dead for well over 4 centuries.

There had been a brief hint of likely romance between Buck and Colonel Wilma Dering, and the troublesome Princess Ardala had a few times held earth to ransom in order to force a romantic alliance between herself and Buck. The truth was that he was lonesome for Jennifer and for the century that had birthed her.

A distant descendant of Apollo's and Sheba's son Markus (who had settled on earth in 1981) fell in with a bad crowd and was used to attempt to manipulate Buck, as she bore a startling resemblance to his long lost love Jennifer. Her name was Leila Marcusson, derived from her ancestor. Yet she died during that encounter, and renewed Buck's sense of grief back to point zero: the day he'd awoken in the 25th Century for the first time.

Buck shared a few more adventures with Earth's Defence Directorate, and then went out aboard the Searcher vessel in the hope of finding a new life. But it never came.

One day he had a surprising visit from someone who introduced himself as Lar-Son.


	6. Chapter 6

"What I'm going to tell you is of the utmost secrecy, Buck. It has been kept secret, known only to my people for centuries. I am descended from both your people (earthlings) and mine (Galacticans). In 1989, an alien colonist named Dillon married a young earth woman named Gloria Alonzo. She kept his secrets, and some of them were passed down through our people through the centuries. In fact a number of them formed the technological basis for Earth's Defence Directorate, but one had to be kept from official knowledge: the design for incorporating a time travel capacity into a Galactican craft known as a Viper. From the time traveller's perspective, it would be possible to 'undo' every rotation of the earth from present day until some desired time in the past."

"Wouldn't you bump into orbiting craft while you were doing it?" asked Buck.

"No. You go into hyper speed and become relatively immaterial and invisible while you are passing backwards through time. I heard rumours begun by a Dr Hewer that you felt out of place with our climate controlled environments, and there must have been other reasons for you to miss the time you came from."

"There certainly are," said Buck, "not the least of which is the woman I left behind. Do you know, after I met a near doppleganger for her in this century, I looked her up in historical archives. From what information survived, it seems she never married. She's back there, alive, but 500 years across time, missing me too, wondering what happened to me. Are you offering me the chance to go back?"

"Yes, but you should know that most time travel activity was outlawed back when the technology was invented. A Commander Adama, head of the Galactican fleet which discovered earth in 1980, had already seen the potential for its misuse, when a rebel councilman named Xaviar attempted to alter the outcome of World War Two, by taking 1980 technology into the 1940s. The only possible reason for my thinking that you would not disrupt the timeline is this. In a sense, time travel would merely be restoring you to your proper time."

"I don't know what to say."

"You can say two things, or at least promise two things. Firstly, you must never pursue any scientific career. You must forget all the things you've learned about 25th Century technology and turn your mind to a career that will not alter what to us is the past. It would otherwise be the effects of Xaviar's plan multiplied by the passing of centuries instead of decades."

"Then why don't I go and stop my younger self from ever taking Ranger 3 up in the first place? Then I'd never sleep 500 years, and this version of me wouldn't exist with all the acquired knowledge."

"That's the second thing you can't do. You can't interfere with your younger self. That timeline must play out. He must remain in orbit, frozen in space drift for 500 years and have all of the involvements in earth saving adventures that you have had in our time. There will be two Bucks living from 1987 until the time YOU die of old age or misadventure. One will be frozen in orbit. The other will be living his life out on earth. You'll have to say that you 'couldn't return in Ranger 3 and came back down in another ship which was then destroyed.' To make that true, you must press the destruct timer of the time travelling Viper, after you've arrived in 1987. Land away from a city and blow it up. Then tell them it blew up. History records that Ranger 3's orbit was so much larger than intended, that nobody from your time ever found you, no matter how hard they might have looked. So your secret will be safe. Under absolutely no circumstances are you to go up into space looking for your other self. A person cannot meet his younger self in the time stream, not ever."

"Aren't you taking a big risk with me?" asked Buck.

"This planet owes you for all the help you've put into saving it many times," said Lar-Son, "The moment Searcher returned to earth, I knew I had to share this knowledge with you. I won't teach you how to construct a time travelling Viper, only give you the one I have built, and teach you how to pilot it into the past. I will truthfully report that I asked you to test pilot a ship design and that I haven't heard from you since. I will let our century's people think you were lost in space, just as your own century's people once correctly assumed."

That night, as he awaited the opportunity to return to his own time and his true love, Buck Rogers inevitably had … a Dream of Jennifer.

Soon he was trained and ready to launch the time travelling viper. Lar-Son farewelled Buck and watched the ship fly towards the sky. Buck engaged the time warp controls and began to undo the last 502 years of rotations. He would be two years older than when he last saw Jennifer, he realised, unless he stopped time travelling in 1989. No. He could not put her through even two years' grief, not this time.

There were those who weren't fully sure of the authenticity of William Rogers' story, when he returned in 1987. It was decided that he should retire from the space program, with an honourable discharge. It was at least as good as the option he would have chosen himself.

Buck would make no attempts to locate the 1987 Galacticans living on earth, no attempts to learn things that would have betrayed Lar-Son's trust in him, and no attempts to alter the timeline any more than his return to 1987 had already done. However, a woman who had grieved his loss for decades in one timeline would now live out her life in his company.

Once back in Jennifer's arms, he said those two words, which for him he had uttered over 502 years ago in his own personal past, albeit two years ago in real time: "Never again."


End file.
